Guild Wars 2

Love the map and the mechanics involved. The story this part was kinda flat. The Braham stuff was so silly and ridiculous. Either write our character as more than a doormat or give us some interaction to let us do it ourselves. It’s starting to get old that our character just takes these insults and stuff without defending themselves.

If you plan on having us “explode” in the future and give our character a chance to say our piece then that’s fine but it’s just annoying at this point to see it happening.

There is zero reason Braham should be so hostile toward us and it felt forced for “dramatic effect” or whatever. There was zero buildup to what happened and the response by our character was ridiculously lacking.

There is a bug with the bundles of winterberries from heart npcs.

You can only buy 5 bundles a day, however if you select say 30 bundles, it will still cost you that much karma even if it only gives you 5.

Rod.6581:

Tyloric.7520:

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

Story is garbage, but all this cutesy stuff is really killing the release. Why the kitten do you need to put all this cutesy BS in the patches?! Ember Bay was one big joke all around, between skritts and frikkin clowns and OMG that stupid Aurene. Bloodstone Fen was much, much better. Atm the top 3 of your 3 releases is 1. Bloodstone Fen, 2. Bloodstone Fen, 3. Bloodstone Fen.

And why is Braham hating you? You literally killed the thing that killed his mom, and he was there too. You can crap out “explanations” but that doesn’t mean they stick. So much potential, all to waste.

That’s a lot of venom :O

The man is just being honest. I feel the same way.

Pretty much on point. You avenged his mother – yet there’s no sympathy, no thankfulness.

And if he lost his mother – shouldn’t he care more about not losing others? Would he not be more mature and less inclined to rush head on?
I mean – that’s basically what the pact did at the end of LS 2 and look how that ended up – it is literally what killed his mother – along with the pact.
And yet he seems to acknowledge none of this.

It’s funny that some people say he got “growth” and “development” when in the end he’s the same “Braham angry, Braham smash” character he was in HoT.
They just gave him a new Batman costume.

Vyrulisse.1246:

Love the map and the mechanics involved. The story this part was kinda flat. The Braham stuff was so silly and ridiculous. Either write our character as more than a doormat or give us some interaction to let us do it ourselves. It’s starting to get old that our character just takes these insults and stuff without defending themselves.

If you plan on having us “explode” in the future and give our character a chance to say our piece then that’s fine but it’s just annoying at this point to see it happening.

There is zero reason Braham should be so hostile toward us and it felt forced for “dramatic effect” or whatever. There was zero buildup to what happened and the response by our character was ridiculously lacking.

P-p-please Braham don’t hurt me -I’ll do better next time.

From the guy who literally went and killed Mordremoth. And saved Tarir. And so on and so forth.
I really love it how we let him say whatever and do whatever.
Commander doormat.

Aurene is supercute!! I love her! She’s soo nawwwwh and adorable!
She was abit buggy at the Ooze part but it fixed till the end after killed tons of Oozes,
Otherwise I am really glad over this episode! Map was really well done, love it!

Can’t wait for more, Anet!

The episode-story was alright too, nothing bad about it.

_______________________________________
My other opinions:

I would love to kill Braham and Taimi off the ’main characters’ team.
They’re so annoying!
And the Dragon’s Watch Guild thing is just stupid, that I have to agree with Braham, it would be better if we rolled as Destiny’s Edge and continued with that.

Eir would have wanted that..

Also, is it only me who’s wondering what happened to the Pale Tree? Is she alright? Last time we heard from someone they just said ’’she’s still recovering’’.
Also, Logan and Zojja? (I do hope they’ll go nuts and something bad will happend since they are prob infected with something from Mordm from the cocoons we rescued them from.)

I can’t wait whenever Kas will appear though,

Awesome map in Far Shiverpeaks! Love it!

The first part with Aurene has been a little tedious, too much dialogue and explanation for self-explanatory tasks.

I didn’t like the endless ‘gather things for the grawl, gather things for the elixir, get 4 times x, 4 times y and 4 times z’ part, it felt like generic fetch quests from any other MMORPG.

The endless static trashmob fights within the instances have been pretty annoying:

• First wave of Svanir, wait. Second wave, wait. Third, wait. Fourth.
• Walk a few steps.
• First wave of wolves, wait. Second wave, wait. Third, wait. Fourth.
• Walk a few steps.
• First wave of spiders, wait. Second wave, wait. Third, wait. Fourth.

These breaks really interrupted the overall flow of the story.

I liked Braham’s changing character and hope that he will do it his way rather than constantly take orders from us.

Liked the new map, though the story was a bit barebones here compared to the other ones. Braham…if you wanted to make us hate him enough to kill him off, you’ve done a perfect job of it. Please, if you continue with this, let him fail and then let the commander punch him onto the ground and then tell him the names of everybody who has died since Claw Island who played a role in the story…to hit home that we know better than anybody what it’s like to lose people. Because right now he’s insufferable and I quite literally want to kill him off.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Liked the new map, though the story was a bit barebones here compared to the other ones. Braham…if you wanted to make us hate him enough to kill him off, you’ve done a perfect job of it. Please, if you continue with this, let him fail and then let the commander punch him onto the ground and then tell him the names of everybody who has died since Claw Island who played a role in the story…to hit home that we know better than anybody what it’s like to lose people. Because right now he’s insufferable and I quite literally want to kill him off.

That’s another thing. A.net is having Braham act like we haven’t lost people close to us. We’ve lost many friends on the way, including our closest one in Trahearne (who we had to kill personally). Like Trahearne as a character or not but he was placed as our character’s closest friend throughout the story.

On another note, it seems like Rytlock has taken the role of closest ally or maybe even Caithe considering how she seems starry eyed with you right now because you forgave her. It also seems like Rytlock is the only “adult” in the group.

The Aurene instance was silly and a bit cringe-worthy for me, but I guess it was ok for showing that the dragon is like a child just starting to learn. The ooze part was kinda annoying though. It wasn’t clear if there was supposed to be some clever way to deal with them or just DPS through and get Aurene to the generators. And for me it was unclear what if anything Aurene was actually doing to the generators, but since they would get destroyed shortly after, I just carried on with it.

Gathering up all the items to make that elixir felt hit or miss. It’s a bit odd if the player explores the zone first since they stumble into parts of it out of order before the quest is even active.

The hybird boss was decent, although a bit too simple. It didn’t feel interesting just leading it around and killing mobs near it. But at least it was reasonably clear at communicating what the player should do.

On the other hand, the last boss was frustratingly unclear for me. As soon as it started I felt like I was being slammed with attacks and things I needed to avoid over and over without a moment to observe the situation and figure out what I was expected to do. Trying to read the tooltips on the mob buffs… nope, ceiling falling everywhere, ok now what do those tooltips say… nope, boss charging at me gotta dodge now… so those tooltips… oh, taking damage, gotta reposition and heal… maybe I can read someth… nope, frozen in place and gotta deal with that… what is even going on here… nope, ceiling falling again. I only had a chance to take stock of the situation after I died. And finally that gave me time to see that some of the pillars that shrunk and then observe the boss charging into one and apparently destroying it. But then I got stuck with the last two pillars because nothing was happening when the boss hit them…. which is of course because that’s not the real mechanic. Took a little longer to figure out that the boss tramples the little mobs which then leads to the pillars being destroyed. And by that time the last couple mobs where positioned annoyingly against the walls, so I had to do a bit of wrangling just to get the boss to pass over them properly. Not an enjoyable experience.

I’m not fully done with current episode but I do have to say ..I don’t like having to talk to the npc’s when there’s a massive group of people around. It kinda breaks immersion since you can’t even see them due to the sheer amount of them. On top of that it creates such incredible lag.. I’ll attach an example of what I mean exactly.

LadySwan.8751:

I’m not fully done with current episode but I do have to say ..I don’t like having to talk to the npc’s when there’s a massive group of people around. It kinda breaks immersion since you can’t even see them due to the sheer amount of them. On top of that it creates such incredible lag.. I’ll attach an example of what I mean exactly.

God yes that too! There has to be a better way. :P

Vyrulisse.1246:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Liked the new map, though the story was a bit barebones here compared to the other ones. Braham…if you wanted to make us hate him enough to kill him off, you’ve done a perfect job of it. Please, if you continue with this, let him fail and then let the commander punch him onto the ground and then tell him the names of everybody who has died since Claw Island who played a role in the story…to hit home that we know better than anybody what it’s like to lose people. Because right now he’s insufferable and I quite literally want to kill him off.

That’s another thing. A.net is having Braham act like we haven’t lost people close to us. We’ve lost many friends on the way, including our closest one in Trahearne (who we had to kill personally). Like Trahearne as a character or not but he was placed as our character’s closest friend throughout the story.

On another note, it seems like Rytlock has taken the role of closest ally or maybe even Caithe considering how she seems starry eyed with you right now because you forgave her. It also seems like Rytlock is the only “adult” in the group.

It makes sense, Rytlock already had to deal with Snaff, so he has cooled down significantly on that front. Which makes me wonder if they’re trying to pull a Rytlock with Braham, with him having to come to terms with the death. He may be projecting blaming himself onto us, even though it was nobody’s fault but Faolain’s.

Caithe we only really forgave I believe because she went through all this crap to protect the egg, so she wouldn’t betray us on that front. Plus if Aurene absorbed most of Mordy’s power, technically she’d be able to control Caithe if necessary.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Vyrulisse.1246:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Liked the new map, though the story was a bit barebones here compared to the other ones. Braham…if you wanted to make us hate him enough to kill him off, you’ve done a perfect job of it. Please, if you continue with this, let him fail and then let the commander punch him onto the ground and then tell him the names of everybody who has died since Claw Island who played a role in the story…to hit home that we know better than anybody what it’s like to lose people. Because right now he’s insufferable and I quite literally want to kill him off.

That’s another thing. A.net is having Braham act like we haven’t lost people close to us. We’ve lost many friends on the way, including our closest one in Trahearne (who we had to kill personally). Like Trahearne as a character or not but he was placed as our character’s closest friend throughout the story.

On another note, it seems like Rytlock has taken the role of closest ally or maybe even Caithe considering how she seems starry eyed with you right now because you forgave her. It also seems like Rytlock is the only “adult” in the group.

It makes sense, Rytlock already had to deal with Snaff, so he has cooled down significantly on that front. Which makes me wonder if they’re trying to pull a Rytlock with Braham, with him having to come to terms with the death. He may be projecting blaming himself onto us, even though it was nobody’s fault but Faolain’s.

Caithe we only really forgave I believe because she went through all this crap to protect the egg, so she wouldn’t betray us on that front. Plus if Aurene absorbed most of Mordy’s power, technically she’d be able to control Caithe if necessary.

A big concern of mine is that I feel like A.net is trying to tell too much story and introduce nuance in too small of packages. These small instances and the lack of any agency on your part in terms of choices and dialogue really detracts from what they’re trying to put across and we end up with stuff like what we got today.

Another inventory clogging item? Another map I am going to avoid out of principle.

The last cutscene felt rushed and out of place. Did they also darken Braham’s skin colour?

I’m really disappointed in this living story release.
It started good, with Aurene stuff, foreshadowing her role in the near future (aka, breed your own elder dragon, in case you need an ally who doesn’t want to eradicate all living beings…)
Then the stuff with the Kodans was really interesting, a bit of lore about their culture, their beliefs, etc…
even the Grawls, with Chokocooka! (French name)…i really liked the chieftain’s part when he tried to explain that Jora was…Whoaaa! (definitely worshipable!!)
But then, the stuff with the elixir, and the Braham drama ruined it all.

In the end, it feels like a sub-par episode, and the only point is:
We’ll fight Primordus and Jormag next…possibly at the same time, if asuran plans fail…

and BTW, if Anet wanted us to despise Moron-Braham, then Good Job! Let him fight Jormag, i’ll be happy to kill him as an icebrood.
I felt bad when we killed zombified allies, even Trahearne, but that moron…i’d kill him 10 times…with each of my characters…

RandomWolf.3986:

The last cutscene felt rushed and out of place. Did they also darken Braham’s skin colour?

It seemed like that to me too.
Can’t have too much diversity can you?

Honestly I’m adoring your more recent releases. Took me a minute to work out some of the mechanics for the story missions, but everything (except initiating Aurene on the Ooze Generators) was pretty intuitive. Wished the ending cutscene was longer if I am honest, but I think it was a good way to end the story.

Loving how the characters are branching out into their own storylines. Seems like our character is finally being challenged at having to work with people and their personalities. Marjory and Braham are both super headstrong, so it makes sense that they’re working on their own now. I’m excited to see if the next LS focuses on Kasmeer.

Keep up the great work Anet!

I’ve so far found it to be unfinishable.

In the last instance, we’ve killed the beast a good four times. Client crashes right after Rox finishes talking. Every time. Right at that point.

The map’s real nice, and the first couple of instances were pretty cool. I’m liking the new minis and adore the new legendary shield. I have faith that the inability to get the home instance nodes will be corrected. I also have faith in my newfound urge to exterminate a certain norn.

redux.1502:

Honestly I’m adoring your more recent releases. Took me a minute to work out some of the mechanics for the story missions, but everything (except initiating Aurene on the Ooze Generators) was pretty intuitive. Wished the ending cutscene was longer if I am honest, but I think it was a good way to end the story.
Loving how the characters are branching out into their own storylines. Seems like our character is finally being challenged at having to work with people and their personalities. Marjory and Braham are both super headstrong, so it makes sense that they’re working on their own now. I’m excited to see if the next LS focuses on Kasmeer.

Keep up the great work Anet!

Being challenged is alright but not when your character just sits there and takes it. Interesting dynamics come from when the “challenging” goes in more than one direction.

Honestly and this is just me personally, but I’m close to giving up on the story entirely in this game. LS3 started off great and has steadily declined. They try to cram these emotional moments into 30 second one-sided “conversations” that you have zero control over how they go and the “character” they are forming for us is ridiculously lacking in any self-respect to defend themselves from unwarranted attacks such as the one we saw today. It seems everyone is allowed to get frustrated and angry except us and it’s kinda annoying.

I don’t understand how they go from us showing frustration with Caithe in Bloodstone Fen and expressing ourselves in a firm but not hostile manner to being everyone’s doormat. It doesn’t help that Braham being hostile to us outta nowhere feels like forced drama and not natural at all.

Guguwars.4263:

and BTW, if Anet wanted us to despise Moron-Braham, then Good Job! Let him fight Jormag, i’ll be happy to kill him as an icebrood.
I felt bad when we killed zombified allies, even Trahearne, but that moron…i’d kill him 10 times…with each of my characters…

You most likely wont have the chance to say whatever is on your head in this game… I feel sometimes like I want to be a villain when I am paired with people like him cause ANET said so…

Also the last mission is bugged and while the mechanic for this fight is common for me from ESO’s Ruins of Mazzatun and probably from many other places, actually while the boss was hitting the stones nothing happened, but when he passed nearby them it counts like they have been hit and broken. Fix this one as well possibly

Siniorica Sunmist.7218:

Also the last mission is bugged and while the mechanic for this fight is common for me from ESO’s Ruins of Mazzatun and probably from many other places, actually while the boss was hitting the stones nothing happened, but when he passed nearby them it counts like they have been hit and broken. Fix this one as well possibly

Overall, I loved it. But. There’s a few inconsistencies and design ‘flaws’ that brought the experience down a notch.

1) As other have already mentioned, the ‘mob after mob after mob’ -parts of the missions.

2) Feeling confused what you’re supposed to do at first due to the nature of the design of the quest at hand. I.e. (as others have mentioned) the Aurene and ooze. It took me a minute, but I was able to figure an effective strategy to move as fast as possible. Others may not have been as fortunate. Also, the Ice Beast boss fight design as just UGH. Combined with certain achievements, it makes you feel annoyed.

3) Braham’s characterization felt too aggressive and player character inconsistent. In previous episodes, the player character has displayed that they aren’t afraid to rough up people if it’s necessary to accomplish the mission at hand. Why are we a doormat when Braham is throwing kittens at us for no reason? Also, a few lines felt unnecessary and didn’t feel like they had a reason to be there. This is the fella who’s fell’d 2 dragons and a bunch of angry cultists and other stuff by now. Where is his confidence?

On the other hand, what I especially liked:

1) The map design was fabulous, and I really dug the choreography of the Hot Springs and Center hub areas

2) The new mastery ties nicely with the events and theme of the map.

3) There’s a lot of fun, small stuff that makes the map feel more unique and complete, such as the Svanir disguise drops and hidden chests with the changing climate. Just beware not to combine too many aspects from the past maps.

4) While the dialogue has its flaws in this episode, it still really makes me smile (occasionally laugh) and feel for the characters at certain moments. Gotta hand it to the voice actors, they’re doing heckova job.

Looking forward to the next episode. Cheers.

Love most of the new map except the area for the waterfall. That area has too many things to out run or (try) to kill. I have spent most of the evening running back from fixing armor to get to the next stage. I guess porting might be the only way for me to progress.

You DEFINITELY need more waypoints in this new area! It looks at least twice the size of bloodstone fen (so far), but has TWO waypoints? I got all the way to the hot springs, died in the icebrood event, and had zero desire to WP and then run all the way back. This is because of all the enemies on the way that chill you. Add more waypoints PLEASE!

Oh, P.S.

Getting bounced around like a pinball is no fun either. Tone it down a little please.

I’m going to leave my comments in sections as I play through each step of this episode, as I won’t be playing through the entirety in a single sitting.

Precocious Aurene
Where is the “play” in this part of the game?

I spent about 30 minutes getting through this story step, with a quick game update in the middle. Most of this time was spent watching the game “play” itself. In the final stage, I literally stopped attacking and moved my character away from the action to watch Aurene have no effect on a creature that uses (Unnatural Carapace) “Energy” in a way completely foreign to the franchise. This also meant I had to kill all my minions, as I play MM. I moved into position and pressed [-] 3 times to allow Aurene to defeat the foe. Part of my reward for this was a “large amount of experience” which increased my experience from 4,318,000 all the way to 4,318,000 because the mastery system has masterfully locked me out of gaining experience.

This story gives players no agency and uses all the worst elements of escort missions and cutscenes.

Anet’s “designers” need to watch Extra Credits (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q7ECX5FaX0), evaluate their game theory and try focusing on fun play. Play is the whole purpose of games.

I agree that we need more waypoints. Those thermal things don’t take me where I want to go, lol. However, I really enjoyed the story missions and the new map (yay for snowy places!). I like this episode more than the 2nd one.

Ironically the highlight for me was actually seeing Braham be a complete kitten to the commander.

While I do think we needed the option of just downright punching him in the face, I did like the fact that he confronts the players selfishness by saying cruel lines such as “your the only one that gets to kill dragons now?” in a very harsh manner it gave him enough layers to make you think of him as a friend whos comradeship is fading.

Its clear he misses his mother, its great that hes got this revenge complex, what does concern me is that you’re only half committing to that plot point.

Heres a tip as a guy who writes for fun and roleplays for kicks.

If your going to commit to it, stick to it, dont be afraid to take things too far, dont be afraid to be exciting and cruel to your characters, or to the player.

Make me care about Braham, make me care, that his revenge streak is going to get someone close to him killed (Like Rox) which will probably redeem him and send him into a spiral of depression all at the same time. Make me reminded of the time I watched Sieran die as Rox throws him out of harms way, and gets killed in the process.

This kind of cruelty would be amazing, it’d really make you remember Claw Isle the most brutal way imagineable, watching Braham be the reason for the death of his best friend.

This would break him, allow the commander to rebuild him, and make him come back after the fall, letting him be a likeable hero once again, probably going back to being Taimi’s surrogate guardian.

Speaking of character depth:

Dont be afraid to make characters evil, snide, cruel, or downright heartless towards the commander, especially ones that could fall or turn evil. Villians are fun when they come from former heroes, especially ones you cared about.

Seeing Jory turn on you with Lazarus was exciting, seeing Braham do the same is intrueging I like this story because I like watching DE fall apart, not because its tragic, but because its interesting, progressive, it moves the plot forwards.

Our companions are not just machines we can order around, they have lives, ideals, choices, sometimes those choices and ours just clash.

I like that way of thinking, it lets them feel more human.

We cant always “control” our friends and perhaps to some extent, we shouldnt. Yet at the same time I also think theres another bit of character I really want to see in all this.

I want to see the commander go dark side, proper, dark side.

Not just Sylvari Mordrem mind trip, but actually give me the option to do some questionable things to my subordinates to “force” them in line, for example, threatening to destroy Taimi’s work if she refuses to do as I say, or threatening to make sure Jory can never see Kasmeer again if she refuses to cooperate with me.

We dont need extremes like murdering them, or torture or something sadistic, but those things that could make us decide do we want to sympathise with our allies, or use them, should be a choice.

We are the commander, a world saviour, a protector, and sometimes, a necessary evil.

We are allowed to take extremes to save the world, even if it means we are never thanked or never loved for them.

So I do hope, A-net, moving forwards, you will show us that the commander is as human in personality, regardless of race, as any other character in the setting, and capable of making as much heroic choices…

As questionable ones.

There is a trend from HoT on that is really making it hard for me to play GW2.

I suffer from simulator sickness. There no first person video games I can play and very few third person games depending on the camera.

HoT added a design trend of having floating dust or spore or glowing dots in the air in just about every corner of every map. These unnecessary specks are very disorienting and make it difficult to be able to continue to play.

This design trend has continued with a vengeance in the new living story content, burning embers, ash, and glowing stuff, in Bloodstone Fen and Ember Bay and now, not just snow, but blowing fog? I lasted about ten minutes and had to lay down for a half hour.

I talked to some of my guildmates and they said that the new area was bothering them too and they don’t usually get sick from games.

To be truthful, I haven’t finished map completion, even after 3868 hours played, because I can’t handle most of the snow zones.

I realize it’s not as easy as flipping a switch, but if it is at all possible, being able to turn off “weather” effects would make it so I can play the new areas much more comfortably.

I know I’m only one person in your player base, but I love the game and would like to enjoy it fully.

I did enjoy the Aurene content. Some cute every once in a while is fine with me!

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Ironically the highlight for me was actually seeing Braham be a complete kitten to the commander.

While I do think we needed the option of just downright punching him in the face, I did like the fact that he confronts the players selfishness by saying cruel lines such as “your the only one that gets to kill dragons now?” in a very harsh manner it gave him enough layers to make you think of him as a friend whos comradeship is fading.

Its clear he misses his mother, its great that hes got this revenge complex, what does concern me is that you’re only half committing to that plot point.

Heres a tip as a guy who writes for fun and roleplays for kicks.

If your going to commit to it, stick to it, dont be afraid to take things too far, dont be afraid to be exciting and cruel to your characters, or to the player.

Make me care about Braham, make me care, that his revenge streak is going to get someone close to him killed (Like Rox) which will probably redeem him and send him into a spiral of depression all at the same time. Make me reminded of the time I watched Sieran die as Rox throws him out of harms way, and gets killed in the process.

This kind of cruelty would be amazing, it’d really make you remember Claw Isle the most brutal way imagineable, watching Braham be the reason for the death of his best friend.

This would break him, allow the commander to rebuild him, and make him come back after the fall, letting him be a likeable hero once again, probably going back to being Taimi’s surrogate guardian.

Speaking of character depth:

Dont be afraid to make characters evil, snide, cruel, or downright heartless towards the commander, especially ones that could fall or turn evil. Villians are fun when they come from former heroes, especially ones you cared about.

Seeing Jory turn on you with Lazarus was exciting, seeing Braham do the same is intrueging I like this story because I like watching DE fall apart, not because its tragic, but because its interesting, progressive, it moves the plot forwards.

Our companions are not just machines we can order around, they have lives, ideals, choices, sometimes those choices and ours just clash.

I like that way of thinking, it lets them feel more human.

We cant always “control” our friends and perhaps to some extent, we shouldnt. Yet at the same time I also think theres another bit of character I really want to see in all this.

I want to see the commander go dark side, proper, dark side.

Not just Sylvari Mordrem mind trip, but actually give me the option to do some questionable things to my subordinates to “force” them in line, for example, threatening to destroy Taimi’s work if she refuses to do as I say, or threatening to make sure Jory can never see Kasmeer again if she refuses to cooperate with me.

We dont need extremes like murdering them, or torture or something sadistic, but those things that could make us decide do we want to sympathise with our allies, or use them, should be a choice.

We are the commander, a world saviour, a protector, and sometimes, a necessary evil.

We are allowed to take extremes to save the world, even if it means we are never thanked or never loved for them.

So I do hope, A-net, moving forwards, you will show us that the commander is as human in personality, regardless of race, as any other character in the setting, and capable of making as much heroic choices…

As questionable ones.

That’s the problem right there. All of what they do so far is one-sided. It feels like they are so in-love with their characters that they don’t want anyone to challenge their perfection, not even the player character. It’s starting to get insulting and ridiculous.

If they did all this and let us as players have more choice in how we react, then that would be fantastic. Or if they can’t do that due to effort required, at least let our characters show growth as well. Right now we are literally the same character we were fresh out our first introductory mission and it’s wearing incredibly thin. It honestly feels like they are taking HUGE steps back from the development we saw during Heart of Thorns.

Quick thought as it occurs:

Can we stop with the achievements that are “oops, messed up, have to start the whole thing over”? I don’t mind them being there, but the exclusion of a quick restart is really grating.

I’m not a fan of the final ice beast battle, mainly because of the way the icebrood minions work. Since they move around and the only way to beat them is with another mob’s abilities, it can be annoying when they take a jank path and miss narrowly. Mechanics that depend on loose AI pathing annoy me.

Sol.6213:

I did enjoy the Aurene content. Some cute every once in a while is fine with me!

Personally, I don’t like all the cutesy stuff in the story and don’t want to see more of it in the upcoming episodes. The Aurene part today felt especially forced and artificial: having her playing hide and seek, stomping on the floor while laughing and ’don’t ya eat that fishy, Aurene!’ and the like has been too much. I know that she’s still a young dragon, but she should at least have some influence or instinct of Glint. Right now, she just wants to play fetch with us.

The shiny Skritt stuff in Ember Bay doesn’t even remotely fit the atmosphere or lore of the Fire Islands, where only the toughest and strongest creatures should survive.
Seeing Quaggans as sensitive, cute creatures in the dangerous new map is exactly the same.

I hope that they’ll stick to the actual lore of GW1 again, adding dangerous creatures like Hydras to the Fire Islands instead of Skritt. It feels like they replaced all the mystical stuff of GW1 with cute, funny stuff .

Tekey.7946:

Personally, I don’t like all the cutesy stuff in the story and don’t want to see more of it in the upcoming episodes.

I thought I was the only one. xD; I don’t mind Aurene but… -whispers- I want to punch Quaggan in the face, they are so annoying.

My game day:
GW2 → Update → Ooze → Ooze → Ooze → Turn off game

Bye

I’m having a bug where I can’t loot any more winterberries, but still need to gather them to progress in the story.

Aurene getting stuck on generators… game stopping bugs always happen… why? 4 years and this stuff still happens!? Honestly, not joking, this happens all the time with new content Anet releases with GW2. Really does destroy immersiveness and generally replaces excitement with annoyance and frustration

Tooltip on generators says “Almost nothing can destroy them.” Completely useless info. People should be able to solve all problems with in-game evidence. Reliance on people having to google things to get through content is poor game design.

Would love to see the rest of the story… still waiting on Aurene.

PS. Nice that Aurene kinda grows, but with no sense of time passing, its a bit weird.

The map is nice, but sadly the story is so awfully stretched by unskippable dialogue, “do the heart quests and collect stuff” and more dialogue. I for one would definitely prefer just having 2 short-ish story instances which actually feature more playtime than dialogue. I know the devs put a lot of effort into this and it’s appreciated, but just sitting around, listening to dialogue for most of the time is simply boring, especially if you plan on replaying the story.

(Spoilers ahead I guess?)
Also, the fight against the ice beast is really, really messy. That thing really likes to get stuck on garm for minutes in the worst places, so it can’t even rush to an ice shard you have to break, but even if it does, it enjoys randomly interrupting its charge or simply running OVER the ice shard just as much. This is not only a frustrating time waster, but also makes the 5min achievement a lot harder than it should be and it would be great if some devs could look into that and fix any issues they might find there.
(Spoilers end here)

Otherwise no complaints here and I really feel like this new pace you’re trying to keep is much better overall. Keep up the good work.

I never honestly understood why Caithe was in so much disgrace. She was disloyal, yes. Still, she was acting totally in accordance with her nature.

Caithe is an alienated loner Assassin/Thief. I would almost have been surprised if she did otherwise.

She reminded us just before disappearing with the egg that we were on the same side, I believed her then and I believe her now.

I will keep my feedback short, just like this episode.

Story was a boring, uninspiring, cringefest. The map is nice but once again just like bloodstone fen and ember bay I have zero reason to go back to it.

Overall score 3/10

How about resolving hanging HoT plotlines before pursuing new story stuff? Some of us want proper updates on Zojja, Logan, the Pale Tree, and the Nightmare Court. You guys were doing great with at least answering one unresolved issue per chapter but fell flat on this chapter.

I’m starting to lose my patience. :\

So, pretty much everything everyone else has said. Some people certainly take an annoyance as ‘Everything sucks!!11@@!!@@1", but in general, they’re not wrong about the annoyances. Same with the good stuff: there’s plenty of good stuff here, but I would hardly call it a home run.

Loved the story. I know there’s a seeming split about ‘cute’ in these games, but I love Aurene. I liked the training with her. It wasn’t too hard or long, but was fun and story driven. I didn’t run into the ooze glitch others have, but certainly the ooze spam and root spam needs to be rebalanced.

Small little annoyance here, but the quest marker really should be in the right place when you’re not on that map, not in some random place so you need to wp again when you get to Hoelbrek.

And finally, the new map.

I loved the story. I loved the world building. I actually like that there are quaggan on the map; this is where they come from. I’d like to see a bit more of ‘fighting quaggan.’ I know as a society they shun their alter forms, but these are soft creatures that choose, everyday, to stay and fight. So, lets see them make the choice to fight.

Liked the Koda. We’ve been learning bits a pieces as we creep further north, and its pretty neat. Their obtuse narcissism – the belief that other races are inferior for not understanding the ways of Koda – is kind of amusing.

But, the map itself, like the last three, is just so… it leaves me wondering who put it together. You take random parts and slap them into their own sections of a very small map. In Ember, it was skritt in one place, carnival (?!) in another, jade in another, etc… And you do the same thing here: Grawl, Svanir, elementals, and mushrooms. I mean, mushrooms? Really? They live in the jungle for HoT. In neither GW or GW2 have we ever had reason to see them in the Shiverpeaks. And yet, here they are, in a small little corner and nowhere else.

Traversability. There is none. None. The updrafts serve no purpose. They don’t extend the glide any appreciable amount. They don’t get you up to the ley line. The ley line does not take you anywhere in particular. And the last remaining method of travel, the thermal tubes, don’t chain or reach the far parts of the map in any easy way.

And you need to stop cluttering our inventories. Why cant we have some type of wallet or bag for map specific currencies? We now have: rubies, petrified wood, berries, shiny ice, twigs, feathers, eggshells, suet, and while we’re at it, nightmare keys. We need an account wallet for map currencies. (We also need an account keyring: lockpicks, skeleton keys, exalted keys, crowbars, acid, machetes…. Ive actually been grateful that the new maps haven’t added new keys.) These all take up precious inventory space!

The mission mechanics, especially on the last boss, need some sprucing up. Too many high level spawn – either make a lot of them, or make them high level. But group after group after group of high level spawns is just ridiculous. The second to last boss, while not hard, really just involves kiting it around the map. Good idea, but eh… But it was certainly more intuitive than the last one. Waaaaaaaaaaaay too much floor coverage on the aoe attack, and too often, for too many other unkillable spawns, all while the instruction tell you nothing about what you’re supposed to do. Really? Get the scroll and kill the boss. Right….

And seriously, as everyone else has said: WTF is up with Braham?! We really need a mastery skill: ‘Smack Braham.’ He showed growth, almost, and then this. You may have more story for him; I hope you do. And if you were on your 2 week schedule from S2, I would, perhaps, not be as annoyed. But you have to treat a 3 month story schedule much different than a 2 week one. Especially when there are so many other loose threads hanging around: The Pale Tree, Logan and Zojja, you introduced something about Rytlock and then….?

Please: Weave a story. Stop going for shock value. Especially as we have to wait 3 months. It’s a year before we get anywhere!

And now that Ive ranted a bit… The Koda torches on this map were a great unifying concept. They could, and should, be the centerpiece of the whole map. But theyre not. They get lost in the rest of the cruft. The defend timer takes too long. No one wants to hang around for that. Especially when there’s no specific reward for it to farm (Im usually against farming, but this is exactly when it should be accounted for.) And am I supposed to just keep lighting them? How do I know when I advance? Nothing is made clear about them, and yet they should be the most obvious part of the map. (Sorry, that was meant to be a good thing…)

Overall, I liked it as a story. I liked it as a map. I was thrilled it wasn’t yet another blasted wasteland. I liked that you actually included a merchant and bank here. But without some serious balancing, I just don’t see the staying power of the previous two maps.

Impressions so far:

Love the fractal, very well done and engaging. Even worthwhile rewards to chase over and I’ve been hearing of a challenge mode with even more rewards which is quite exciting to think about. And I wasn’t expecting it to continue the chaos fractal story or to like it if it did do that (I did), so well played there as well.

Love what I’ve seen of the new map so far, it looks awesome (especially the bottom right areas are my favorite with the hot pools and the jotun stones). Again with the rewards just from the vendors I’ve peaked at so far there is a lot I am excited to go after and work towards that could potentially keep me captivated for quite a while.

Story wise, I felt the instances had too many vets and elites to the point of being ridiculous. Sort of like it is taking up the mantle of the original high scale fractals before they started getting reworked. Times it did that were tedious and when I died I felt cheated not challenged.

Where mechanics were worked in instead I feel the instances did a lot better.

Not fond of the cinematic ending. I’m sure it will lead up to something but I would rather have revisited Taimi one last time or something instead. I guess that’s better to start off in a different episode.

Braham really isn’t a likeable character. And this episode just pushed him further into the not like category.

The Aurene challenges weren’t the most exciting thing ever, but I still enjoyed them and think they were a nice fun break from where the story has been so far. Can’t wait to get the mini!!

The new map is beautiful, but I’d honestly be content if it were even just purely forest and hot springs assets. I can’t help but think that the forest assets and some of the dialogue hint at Isle of Janthir as the next new map.

My biggest complaint by far, non-related to the fact that the episodes do seem incredibly short despite having to wait 2 or 3 months at a time for them, is the fact that this map is horrible to get around in. As many others have said, the ley line is so high up and pointless many people don’t even use it. The updrafts and the thermal things aren’t very useful either. I think some of this could be resolved by adding in waypoints in the more isolated areas, like the forest and the hot springs specifically because they are areas of the map that aren’t really used for anything.

There are also a lot of relatively empty spaces in the new map. There isn’t some large meta in the forest where we fight a champion, there isn’t really anything in the Wayward Cave despite it being loaded to the brim with svanir and icebrood and a random champion in the middle. It seems like a lot of these areas could use some more events to pull people in, especially given how beautiful these new assets are.

I somehow guessed on the Champ Ice beast fight and got it right. Don’t even know how considering there was no explanation. That was a little strange.

After thinking a bit more I’m starting to feel we need at least one Chapter that is HEAVY on story and maybe tying up some lingering loose ends and light on exploration or the “new map” stuff we’ve been getting. It sounds crazy to most I’m sure, but I’m starting to feel like the storyline is just an annoyance to get out of the way asap and that the maps are the stars here.

It’s probably sacrilege to say that in regards to an MMO though. :P I don’t think it would hurt to go back to an old map to push some storyline along and get things finished before diving head first into more open threads.

Brief overall first impressions:
To me, the story was interesting, but oddly paced. The training with Aurene was so long. Going through all the steps of the elixir was so long. And then the story with Braham felt rushed in between long pauses to kill endless mobs. Way too many elite mobs for solo play throughout.

The map is really large and interesting. I enjoyed exploring and mapping it, except for the vista at the hot springs. The mob density and difficulty seems okay. I like the meta, although after my first entrance to the map, the braziers stay lit, so there really isn’t much to it.

I’m really not happy with more wasted rewards (Maguuma mastery books) that I cannot collect because I’m being punished for not wanting to do raids. Please consider changing this block. I can’t earn XP for spirit shards in Bloodstone Fen either. It’s a horrible block and it just continues with each release.

Talking to a Kodan Flame Bearer feels like talking to a Lakota PipeBearer. ( Yes, I know a couple. ) I feel I should be purifying for Sun Dance. The Creator, aka Koda, would be pleased.

Cool concepts and ongoing great story.

I haven’t managed to get to the end bit with Brahm. I don’t like him at all anyway. I’d have kicked him from the team long ago. I’m guessing ANET has a setup coming for him to redeem himself.

One annoyance: I’ve been playing the story for close to 4 hours and still haven’t gotten to the hot springs. This is most definitely a zerg map, which makes solo’ing a hassle. I have to win a multi enemy fight every 10 feet or so, it seems.

Personally love it. Story’s nice – though a tad too long at times, ex training Aurene (and she is still so kitten cute!).
New map is amazing, it looks good and the events are interesting – looking very forward to exploring the map without getting distracted by the story.
Seen many who are annoyed by the amount of harder mobs, but personally find it nice to get a bit more challenge in story/open world.